Bartram, William, 1739–1823, American naturalist, b. Philadelphia; son of John Bartram. He is known chiefly for his Travels (1791), in which he describes his journey (1773–77) through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida and areas to the west. His book vividly portrays the plants and wildlife of the country and lists 215 native birds, the most complete list of that time. Bartram's influence is seen in the works of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Chateaubriand, and other writers who found his book an unexcelled source of descriptions of the American wilderness and its inhabitants.

Bartram, William

(born April 9, 1739, Kingsessing, Pa., U.S.—died July 22, 1823, Kingsessing) U.S. naturalist, botanist, and artist. the son of John Bartram, he described the abundant river swamps of the southeastern U.S. in their primeval condition in his Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida (1791). The book was influential among the English and French Romantics (see Romanticism). Bartram was also noted for his renderings of plants and animals.

Bartram, William (1739–1823) botanist; born in Kingsessing (Philadelphia), Pa. As a youth he showed a talent for drawing specimens collected by his father, John Bartram, America's first botanist, but he first worked as a merchant and trader (1757–61). In 1765 he accompanied his father on an expedition to Florida, and remained in the American south, drawing natural flora, gathering botanical specimens, becoming an accomplished ornithologist, and befriending both colonial planters and members of indigenous tribes. After his father's death (1777), he returned to Pennsylvania to become a partner with his brother John Bartram to care for his father's botanical garden (1777–1812). He declined a professorship of botany at the University of Pennsylvania (1782), preferring to write on natural history and his observations on Indians; his literary accounts of his travels greatly influenced the 19th-century romantic movement; Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia etc. (1791) is regarded as his masterpiece. In 1786, William Bartram was elected to the American Philosophical Society. He remained active as a botanist, dying suddenly after writing a description of a plant.